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Plastic Man: The Artful Life of Jerry Ross Barrish

Plastic Man: The Artful Life of Jerry Ross Barrish

This delightful documentary follows Jerry Ross Barrish, an unorthodox sculptor in his 70s, as he struggles to achieve commercial success. Daylighting as a bail bondsman and formally a pioneering independent filmmaker, Barrish now sculpts with found plastic—trash, essentially—which he assembles into works of Picasso-esque humanity. Too often art documentaries treat their subjects with reverent distance. But Barrish’s infectious charm and whimsical art will make you want to pick up a pencil and start drawing.

Presenting Princess Shaw thumbnail

Presenting Princess Shaw

This 2015 crowd-pleasing documentary from Israeli director Ido Haar is about the touching partnership between YouTube artist Samantha Montgomery (Princess Shaw), and Israeli mashup artist Kutiman.

The Producers (2005)

The Producers (2005)

Max is a Broadway producer with a reputation for consistently churning out flops. Leo is a nebbish accountant. Soon after meeting, Leo plants the idea of embezzlement in Max’s head. Before you know it, their get-rich-quick scheme is born. All they have to do is put together the granddaddy of all flops and they’ll be rolling in dough. However, making a disaster isn’t as easy as it seems.

Projections of America

Projections of America

Hollywood screenwriter Robert Riskin’s Mr. Deeds Goes to Town won him a 1937 Oscar. Less well known is Riskin’s series of short films, produced to aid America’s WWII effort. The films’ American values reflect his own Jewish, left-leaning principles, countering foreigners’ negative stereotypes of United States citizens. With narration by John Lithgow, director Peter Miller skillfully brings this effort to light.

Promise at Dawn

Promise at Dawn

Writer/statesman Romain Gary is plagued by the long shadow cast by the ambitions of his mother.

Set in German-occupied Prague, this visually stunning, highly original thriller explores how much we might compromise for love. Emil accepts a job promotion to be the on-air voice of the Nazi propaganda in order to protect Hana, his Jewish wife. Meanwhile, Hana’s glamorous life as a movie star comes to an abrupt end. As she rebels against her Emil’s attempts to control her every move, Hana sets out on some dangerous adventures.

Quality Balls: The David Steinberg Story

Quality Balls: The David Steinberg Story

If you’ve never heard of David Steinberg—and even if you have—you’ll be astonished at the scope of his career captured in this very funny doc. The same man whose irreverent routine in 1968 contributed to the demise of the Smothers Brothers show also directed episodes of Seinfeld, Friends and Curb Your Enthusiasm in the 2000s. Steinberg genially recounts his adventures between clips and interviews with comedians he inspired. Preceded by Little Horribles: Road Rage

Rabbi Goes West, The

Rabbi Goes West, The

The film follows a controversial Chabad Hasidic rabbi from Brooklyn who moved ten years ago to Bozeman, Montana to bring his brand of Judaism to the American west. It examines Jewish identity in one of the most non-Jewish parts of the country, and sees what happens when other established forms of American Judaism (Reform, Conservative) are challenged by this Hasidic rabbi's undeniably charismatic Chabad presence.

Rabbi Wolff: A Gentleman Before God

Rabbi Wolff: A Gentleman Before God

Willy Wolff escaped the Nazis, became a renowned British journalist and didn’t go to rabbinical school till he was in his 50s. Now in his 80s, he leads two communities in Germany and still finds time for yoga, learning Russian and enjoying the racetrack. We go behind the scenes to see the beautiful and sometimes heartbreaking life of a deeply religious man who is rarely seen without a twinkle in his eye.

Brace yourself for Rabies, Israel’s first-ever horror flick. A young woman with a dark secret finds herself ensnared in an underground trap deep within an Israeli forest by a psychotic killer. Meanwhile, four attractive Israeli youths who took a wrong turn, a grizzled forest ranger and his dog, and a pair of rogue cops get drawn into a roiling ocean of misunderstandings. A ferocious bloodbath ensues. Prepare to squirm.

Rabin in His Own Words

Rabin in His Own Words

This examination of the life and times of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is constructed largely from archival footage, photographs and interviews, from Rabin’s early days to his tragic death. Director Erez Laufer (One Day After Peace, SFJFF 2012) takes us from Rabin’s childhood, through his experience fighting in three wars, to his assassination, and reminds us of the possibility for peace that remains for those who want it. —Seth Barron

In the early 2000s, two professors were captivated by a series of now vanished but once resplendent synagogues whose painted interiors captured the color of Jewish life in 18th-century Poland. Determined to restore the splendor of these wooden structures, the husband-and-wife team recruited 300 young artists and students to reconstruct a life-sized model of one such synagogue. Raise the Roof tracks the labor and love that illuminate a glorious piece of Jewish history.

Rashevski's Tango

Rashevski's Tango

Rosa Rashevski believed that tango could heal the body better than chicken soup. She is the catalyst for considerable family drama in Rashevski’s Tango, a charming ensemble feature by Belgian director Sam Garbarski. Set in Paris, the film is a portrait of three generations of a Jewish family wrestling with issues of identity, love and interfaith marriage after the death of matriarch Rosa.Rosa’s sons Simon and David struggle with their abandonment by their father, who left Rosa decades ago to become Orthodox and move to Israel. Simon and his Christian wife Isabelle fight over whether he will be buried in a Jewish cemetery. Their daughter Nina is falling in love with Antoine, who isn’t Jewish (but at least knows how to tango!). Meanwhile, Rosa’s grandson is in love with a Muslim woman. From the generation who lived through the Shoah, to their children and grandchildren, Rashevski’s Tango delivers laughs, tears and romance with its nuanced script and stellar performances.

While most Americans think of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a progressive superhero and the beacon of left-leaning thinking on a court that veers ever-rightward, this raucous and informative documentary portrait reveals the complex history that brought her to this point.

When the beautiful Yael arrives in an East Jerusalem settlement, Benny discovers her suppressed lustful desires.

Red Flag: Spotlight on Alex Karpovsky

Red Flag: Spotlight on Alex Karpovsky

A star of HBO’s hit comedy series Girls and Lena Dunham’s Tiny Furniture, Alex Karpovsky is one of America’s hottest emerging filmmakers and actors. Describing his onscreen persona as “his little Jewish engine of anxiety and guilt,” Karpovsky is a new generation’s Woody Allen. Red Flag, Karpovsky’s newest film as director/writer/actor, is his most biting satire. Alex Karpovsky will appear live at the Castro Theatre, followed by clips and discussion.

The Willers were one of only 12 Jewish families to survive the Nazi occupation of Prague. More remarkably, they survived openly as Jews. Red Trees is an exquisitely filmed essay that chronicles the family’s life in the Czech Republic, their narrow escape from the death camps and eventual emigration to Brazil; it is both a testament to the human will to survive as well as a celebration of diversity and acceptance.

Regarding Susan Sontag

Regarding Susan Sontag

Regarding Susan Sontag reflects the boldness of Sontag’s work and the cultural importance of her thought, through extraordinary archival footage and still photographs, riveting interviews with Sontag’s friends and colleagues, and a rich tapestry of artifacts from popular culture. These are combined with creatively culled and manipulated images to create a nuanced, sophisticated portrait of a great thinker. Many Americans know Sontag’s name; the film shows us who she was, and why her thoughts about topics such as illness, photography, war, terrorism, and torture remain vitally important in the new world of the 21st century.

With the only surviving photo of Regina Jonas, filmmaker Diana Groo reconstructs the life of the world’s first female rabbi. The film poetically reveals the pleasures and chaos of Weimar and post-Weimar Germany with archival images from cabarets to the 1936 Olympics. During the Nazi era, Jonas’s sermons and her unparalleled dedication brought encouragement to persecuted German Jews. With actress Rachel Weisz as the voice of Regina. Preceded by Tzniut Through graceful and poetic use of archival footage, Diana Groo brings us a story of a person whose image is known though one photograph alone. Scenes from Jewish life in Berlin during the early twentieth century come to life: synagogues, Jewish schools, parks, streets, and newsreels permeate the film, while a gentle voiceover handled expertly by Dánel Böhm and Daniel Kardos tell us this unique story. What may have seemed a challenge for a filmmaker, turns into the film’s greatest creative trait.

Yakov Fidelman struggles to hold on to the antique restoration workshop that has been his life’s work. After his longtime business partner dies, Fidelman rejects his estranged son Noah’s idea to close the business and build an apartment complex on the site. Anchored by Sasson Gabay’s (The Band’s Visit) mesmerizing performance, Yossi Madmony’s first feature yields a complex set of frayed character relations for which restoration proves an apt metaphor. [MINIGUIDE 70/70]

Digging through his father's home videos, a young man reconstructs the story of his boyhood and recalls the abuse he suffered through.

Robert Klein Still Can't Stop His Leg

Robert Klein Still Can't Stop His Leg

Like Richard Pryor and George Carlin, he influenced a slew of the next generation of comics, and Robert Klein is still really funny! Klein is shown in his daily routines, providing a privileged look at the great comedian as he jokes about everyday life. Klein appeared on the Tonight Show and Letterman more than 100 times and hosted the third Saturday Night Live, appearing in the famous cheeseburger sketch. His spot-on impression of Rodney Dangerfield and his meeting with Don Rickles are some of the many highlights. Interviews with Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Stewart and Bill Maher, as well as clips from some of Klein’s seminal routines, round out this delightful portrait.—Jay Rosenblatt

Rock in the Red Zone

Rock in the Red Zone

On the edge of the Negev Desert, the city of Sderot became the target of near-constant close-range Qassam rockets after Israel’s 2005 disengagement from Gaza. Sderot’s youth found expression for both their anger and their hope in rock music. Drawn by the music’s energy, director Laura Bialis documents Sderot’s efforts to gain attention from Israel’s large cities, long before the summer of 2014, when longer range rockets reached them, too.

When social media, “boys will be boys” culture and vigilante justice collided, Steubenville, Ohio, was forever changed

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